Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Danticat, Edwidge (Vol. 136) - Myriam J. A. Chancy (essay date 1997)

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Myriam J. A. Chancy (essay date 1997)

SOURCE: “Léspoua fè viv: Female Identity and the Politics of Textual Sexuality in Nadine Magloire's Le mal de vivre and Edwidge Danticat's Breath, Eyes, Memory,” in Framing Silence: Revolutionary Novels by Haitian Women, Rutgers University Press: New Brunswick, NJ, 1997.

[In the following essay, Chancy examines the manner in which both Magloire and Danticat demonstrate the extent to which Haitian women have been rendered “invisible in a society itself typified through their sexualization and denigration.”]

Moon marked and touched by sun
my magic is unwritten
but when the sea turns back
it will leave my shape behind.

—Audre Lorde, “A Woman Speaks”

Je viendrais à ce pays mien et je lui dirais: “Embrassez-moi sans crainte. … Et si je ne sais que parler, c'est pour vous que je parlerai.”

[I would...

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1. Introduction
2. Principal Works
3. Criticism
   1. Edwidge Danticat with Margaria Fichtner (interview date 1 May 1995)
   2. Edwidge Danticat with Renee H. Shea (interview date 17 January 1996)
   3. Myriam J. A. Chancy (essay date 1997)
   4. Publishers Weekly (review date 8 June 1998)
   5. Michael Upchurch (review date 27 September 1998)
   6. Zia Jaffrey (review date 16 November 1998)
   7. Matthew Rothschild (review date December 1998)
   8. Jacqueline Brice-Finch (review date Spring 1999)
4. Further Reading
5. Copyright

1. Edwidge Danticat